Article

Disruption and re-regulation in work and employment: from organisational to institutional experimentation

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Abstract

This article proposes experimentation as a framework for understanding actor agency in the changing regulation of work and employment. This involves contrasting institutional change with organisational and institutional experimentation approaches in order to understand how, in the context of uncertainty, actors in the world of work experiment with new ways of organising and seek to institutionalise them into new understandings, norms and rules. The article describes the fault lines of disruption that are generating a vast range of experiments in the world of work. These fault lines invite resilient responses and the development of collective capabilities at two levels: first, organisational experimentation, where social actors seek to modify or renew their organisations, networks and alliances and reflect on, assess and learn from their experiments; second, institutional experimentation, where these responses are scaled up and institutionalised over time through more general understandings, norms and rules. A key challenge for comparative research and strategising is to find the appropriate institutional conditions that will facilitate and enable organisational experiments, whilst overcoming constraining institutional conditions. This challenge is illustrated through the examples of co-working and the development of new forms of collective representation.

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... Levesque and Murray (2010) characterize these skills as intermediation, framing, articulating and learning. Murray et al. (2020) in addition argue that institutional resources need to be adapted to accommodate changed circumstances and that such adaptation requires experimentation-new strategies, the search for new resources and allies and the building of new institutions. ...
... The failure of the unions to engage in both worker representation proposals suggest again a failure to recognize the significance of IPR and a reluctance to engage in the kind of experimentation necessary to exploit IPR which may involve modifying existing institutions and institutional constraints in order to build new ones (Stone, 2014;Murray et al., 2020). Hyman (2001) suggested "Unions themselves are of course institutions and their own structural characteristics may form part of the analysis". ...
... Intermediation skills were not sufficient to develop the coherence between plant and national levels of the unions' structures to progress strategy nor to explore with employers supportive of multiemployer bargaining the possibility of maintaining some kind of sectoral bargaining structure. The trade unions did not seem to be willing to experiment and explore the value of new PRs (Murray et al., 2020). The failure to establish a stronger confederal role for the TUC suggests a lack of capacity to reflect upon and learn from experience to maximize the effectiveness of the unions' own institutions. ...
Article
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Purpose The paper examines the approach of United Kingdom (UK) Trade Unions to the use of institutional power resources (IPR) in the second half of the twentieth century. Design/methodology/approach Using secondary material, it examines the unions' approach to IPR in three cases; collective bargaining; worker representation and trade union structure. Findings The paper concludes that unions did not appreciate the importance of, and lacked a strategic approach to, IPR. Although employer and government action were largely responsible for the decline of industrial relations institutions, the failure of the unions to engage with IPR contributed to this process. It explains the failure of the unions to engage with IPR by reference to their lack of strategic capabilities and skills in relation to power resources (PRs) in general and IPR in particular. Research limitations/implications It would have been interesting to collect primary data via interviews with union actors from the period examined to test the interpretation of secondary data contained in the article. Practical implications The paper has identified the kind of strategic decision-making which is necessary for unions to engage effectively with IPR. It is has also indicated the key skills which unions need to develop to be able to manage their engagement with IPR. Social implications The paper has implications for the role of trade unions in society, showing the need for them to develop narratives to convince society of the importance of their role and action and to develop the skills which enable them to connect with other social groups, e.g. intermediation, engagement with coalitional resources. Originality/value Analysis of the decline of industrial relations institutions in this period has emphasized the role of employers and the state. This paper contributes to a more balanced perspective on this decline by drawing attention to the lack of a union strategy towards IPR and the importance of the detail of the management and employment of power resources.
... One of the most common studies identified that affective job disruption related to job insecurity, changing regulation, turnover intention and unemployment (Brougham & Haar, 2020;Murray et al., 2020;Bayazit & Bayazit, 2017;Dube et al., 2016) argued that affective job disruption as even due to inter-role conflict, displaced employees, job loss and unemployment. Eersel et al., (2019) and Fiorito et al., (2021) suggested that affective job disruption correlated with inter-role conflict between employer and employee. ...
... Our study examined the effect of precarious employment, division of work, inter-role conflict and deviant behavior on the affective job disruption of informal employees of Lao PDR. The structural hypothesized model shows a positive correlation at p < 0.01, all hypotheses (2017), Gallie et al., (2017) and Murray et al., (2020) illustrated that job insecurity, job loss, and unemployment are correlated with affective job disruption, as discussed in the related literature on affective job disruption of informal employees, with a focus on job loss (Gowan, 2012), unemployment (Fauser, 2019) and (re)employment (Fasbender & Klehe, 2019). ...
... Our study shows that job insecurity, job loss and unemployment are correlated with affective job disruption of informal employees. Further, previous literature on affective job disruption (e.g., Cairó & Cajner 2018;Liu & Ngo, 2017, Kundu & Gahlawat, 2016Murray et al., 2020), we extend the precarious employment, division of work, inter-role conflict and deviant behavior. Theoretically, our structural hypothesized model can be applied to certain research to generate new insights into understanding the affective job disruption of informal employees (Balz & Schuller, 2021;Barclay et al., 2022;Barhate et al., 2021;Bohle et al., 2021;Brougham & Haar, 2020;Costa & Neves, 2017;Eersel et al., 2019;Gallie et al., 2017;Itzkovich, 2016;Pak et al., 2020;Voßemer & Heyne, 2019). ...
Article
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Affective job disruption is one of the most common problems of informal employees in the Lao People’s Democratic Republic (Lao PDR). However, whether affective job disruption correlated with job insecurity, job loss and unemployment has not been studied. The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of precarious employment, division of work, inter-role conflict and deviant behavior on affective job disruption of informal employees. The questionnaires were distributed to 1500 informal employees in Vientiane, in the Lao PDR for the period 2018–2019. A structural equation modeling was used to test the hypotheses, which performs using STATA statistical software program. The hypothesized model showed that precarious employment, division of work, inter-role conflict and deviant behavior are correlated with affective job disruption. This study suggested that affective job disruption has important implications for informal employees when experience over a long-term period. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.
... Premièrement, le rythme de la progression a été plus soutenu dans les années 2000 que dans la décennie suivante, même si l'on observe une hausse remarquable en 2020. Ce dernier phénomène peut s'expliquer par le régime de congé mis en place pendant la pandémie de Covid-19 : dans le cadre de ce régime, les syndicats ont été associés à la gestion des prestations liées au chômage, ce qui a favorisé la syndicalisation (pour plus de détails, voir Vandaele 2023 Murray et al. 2020). L'étude de cas présente une analyse désagrégée : les principaux groupes professionnels au sein de l'UBT/BTB constituent l'unité première de l'analyse. ...
... Indépendamment de toute appréciation de sa taille, cela n'empêche pas le syndicat de renouveler sa dynamique interne. Ce qui permet d'envisager d'autres variables explicatives que la taille du syndicat en tant que telle.L'expérimentation en termes de mobilisation au sein de l'UBT/BTB et de la section TRL semble cocher de nombreuses cases identifiées par la littérature sur le renouveau syndical en termes de ressources de pouvoir et de capacités stratégiques(Laroche et Murray 2024 ;Murray et al. 2020). Elle s'est construite sur des identités collectives fortes et un solide On the road again… ou comment expliquer la croissance des effectifs du syndicat socialiste des transports en Belgique enracinement horizontal et vertical du syndicat dans son réseau, mais aussi sur l'articulation entre les différents éléments. ...
Technical Report
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Dans un contexte marqué par des défis sans précédent, les syndicats européens ont su faire preuve de capacités de résistance et d'adaptation remarquables pour sauvegarder et renforcer les droits des travailleurs. Ce rapport passe en revue diverses stratégies mises en œuvre par les syndicats en Allemagne, en Belgique, au Danemark, en Espagne et en Italie. Il examine comment les syndicats de ces pays évoluent dans un environnement socio-économique et politique de plus en plus complexe. Le choix de ces cinq pays est dicté par la volonté de rendre compte des trois grandes variétés de syndicalisme et de systèmes de relations industrielles présentes en Europe. Le rapport analyse également le répertoire des actions d'une fédération syndicale européenne, UNI Europa, afin d'évaluer la dimension européenne de l'activité syndicale.
... Au lieu de cela, un dialogue abductif est engagé en s'appuyant sur les preuves émergentes d'initiatives innovantes et sur des aperçus conceptuels. Ces derniers s'inspirent de la théorie du transfert de politiques qui trouve son origine dans les sciences politiques (Benson et Jordan 2011 ;Dolowitz et Marsh 1996 ;Dussauge-Laguna 2012 ;Evans 2009) et d'approches qui mettent en lumière l'impact des capacités stratégiques des syndicats sur leurs expérimentations en matière de mobilisation (Laroche et Murray 2024 ;Lévesque et Murray 2010 ;Murray et al. 2020). L'étude de cas présente une analyse désagrégée : les principaux groupes professionnels au sein de l'UBT/BTB constituent l'unité première de l'analyse. ...
... L'expérimentation en termes de mobilisation au sein de l'UBT/BTB et de la section TRL semble cocher de nombreuses cases identifiées par la littérature sur le renouveau syndical en termes de ressources de pouvoir et de capacités stratégiques (Laroche et Murray 2024 ;Lévesque et Murray 2010 ;Murray et al. 2020). Elle s'est construite sur des identités collectives fortes et un solide enracinement horizontal et vertical du syndicat dans son réseau, mais aussi sur l'articulation entre les différents éléments. ...
Chapter
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La Belgique a longtemps fait figure d'exception par rapport à la baisse du taux de syndicalisation. Depuis le milieu des années 1990, et alors que la plupart des pays d'Europe voyaient ce taux diminuer, le taux de syndicalisation belge était resté stable, à hauteur de 55 % (Vandaele 2023). Plus récemment toutefois, cette stabilité a été remise en question : dans l'ensemble, les deux principales confédérations syndicales perdent des membres 1 et le taux de syndicalisation est tombé sous la barre symbolique des 50 % en 2019. La Confédération des syndicats chrétiens (CSC ou ACV/Algemeen Christelijk Vakverbond) a été confrontée à une réduction du nombre de ses membres depuis 2011 ; dans le cas de la confédération socialiste, la Fédération générale du travail de Belgique (FGTB ou ABVV/Algemeen Belgisch Vakverbond), le déclin des effectifs a commencé en 2014. Cependant, parmi les six syndicats affiliés à cette dernière confédération, qui réunissait 1 519 453 membres en 2022, deux petits syndicats affiliés ont vu leur nombre de membres augmenter de manière ininterrompue depuis le début des années 2000. L'un d'entre eux est Horval, un syndicat actif dans l'hôtellerie, la restauration et le secteur de l'alimentation. Mais la progression la plus forte est celle enregistrée par la plus petite organisation affiliée à la FGTB/ABVV, l'Union belge du Transport (UBT ou BTB/Belgische Transportbond), qui syndicalise les travailleurs du secteur privé du transport. Le nombre de ses affiliés a plus que doublé en vingt ans, passant de 29 423 membres en 2000 à 62 112 en 2022, ce qui fait quasiment de l'UBT/ BTB une « licorne syndicale » 2. belge. La part de ses membres au sein de la FGTB/ ABVV a donc augmenté, passant de 2,5 % à 4,2 % au cours de la même période. L'UBT/BTB constitue donc un cas intéressant et remarquable dans le paysage syn-dical belge, en tant que syndicat qui gagne en puissance, du moins en ce qui con-cerne la dimension du renouveau syndical 3 lié aux effectifs. En se basant sur une recherche qualitative, ce chapitre se concentre donc sur ce syndicat de taille rela-tivement modeste, à prédominance masculine, qui regroupe des ouvriers du secteur des transports, et qui a célébré sa centième année d'existence en 2013 (BTB 2013b).
... In other instances, they may be entirely unaware of laws that may empower them. As a glaring example, researchers have identified a significant contraction in the "systematic web of rules" that were traditionally available to standard workers and emergent opportunities for experimentation within an emergent "patchwork of rules" to protect the non-standard workforce (Wright et al. 2021;Murray et al. 2020). This patchwork of rules requires workers and their representatives to identify those that empower them and engage in experimentation in how to combine them in ways that lift labour standards. ...
... Not all sources of institutional power are the same, and some are more 'fragile' than others (Schmalz 2018). Moreover, institutional change may erode complementarities across different sources of power, and may even invoke new ones, where workers innovate by drawing on less used institutions or existing institutions in new ways for the purposes of resistant or even experimentation (Murray et al. 2020). Unions which do not invest in institutional power are more vulnerable to change. ...
Chapter
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... Le changement climatique s'imbrique dans l'accélération des nouvelles technologies numériques. Cette double perturbation génère une grande incertitude de la part des acteurs de cette industrie qui se livrent à de nombreuses expérimentationssouvent à l'extérieur de leurs répertoires traditionnels (Murray et al. 2020). Les normes sont parfois remises en question, parfois renouvelées, parfois recombinées, dans le cadre d'une délibération continue sur la manière d'adopter et de mettre en oeuvre ces nouvelles technologies. ...
... Les syndicats, par leur présence chez les concessionnaires et dans les comités paritaires, exercent également un pouvoir dans la régulation du travail, des compétences et de la formation. Pour répondre aux défis, les travailleurs, les syndicats et les organismes d'État investissent des ressources et leur pouvoir en expérimentant de nouveaux répertoires stratégiques (Murray et al., 2020). Cela se manifeste par des initiatives autour des exigences de qualification, des lacunes en matière de compétences, de l'accès à l'information, de la réglementation des métiers et du développement de nouvelles formations. ...
Article
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Le discours sur l'impact des changements numériques suit souvent une logique déterministe selon laquelle les transformations induites par ces bouleversements auraient des effets unidirectionnels et déstabiliseraient la nature du travail et des métiers et leurs institutions régulatrices. Prendre pour point de départ que cette régulation s'incarne dans un ordre négocié nous amène à analyser ces changements comme étant dépendants des compromis institutionnalisés et du pouvoir des acteurs sociaux qui forment cet ordre. Cet article propose d'analyser ces renégociations à travers une étude de cas sectorielle, l'industrie des services automobiles au Québec et, plus particulièrement, des techniciens qui assurent l'entretien et la réparation des véhicules. Cette industrie est sujette à de multiples pressions provenant des changements technologiques : sur la nature du métier et l'exécution du travail, sur la formation et la production de compétences et sur les conditions de travail. Notre étude démontre comment ces changements doivent être analysés au prisme des tensions au sein de la relation d'emploi, en fonction de l'héritage institutionnel et selon les relations de pouvoir entre les acteurs de ce secteur. Les règles qui émergent de cet ordre (re)négocié étant sujettes à diverses formes d'expérimentations, les contours des compromis institutionnalisés font l'objet d'une transition plutôt que d'une rupture radicale.
... Austerity drives, flexibilization of working conditions, and government-led reforms undermining collective employment rights diminished already scarce trade union (hereafter union) resources (Doellgast et al., 2018). One strand of the literature argues that unions are unable to counter these adverse trends and fall into oblivion (Ost, 2009), while another espouses Nietzsche's 'what does not kill me makes me stronger' belief: it asserts that the cumulative difficulties faced by labour organizations may trigger revitalization initiatives seeking to facilitate their adaptation to new circumstances (Murray et al., 2020;Weil, 2005). ...
... The findings of this Special Issue's empirical articles are largely in line with the literature arguing that adverse conditions foster union revitalization (Gumbrell-McCormick and Hyman, 2013;Murray et al., 2020). However, they neither fully support Ost's (2009) gloomy predictions concerning the future of CEE unions (i.e. ...
Article
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This study comparatively examines the relationship between revitalization strategies and trade union power resources in Central Eastern Europe. It shows that the post-2008 weakening of union power resources in the region served as a catalyst for a wide range of revitalization strategies, many of which included elements not documented in the re-vitalization literature. In most cases, union revitalization strategies involved the mobilization of organizational and societal resources and were geared towards (re)building statutory rights for unions and (re)establishing legal guarantees for workers. This 'institutional longing', however, left many organizations oblivious to membership decline, which may threaten their long-term survival.
... Another strand of the literature argues that an adverse context can trigger union revitalization actions (Gumbrell-McCormick and Hyman, 2013;Murray et al., 2020). Based on evidence concerning unions' actions in the U.S. since the 1990s, Weil (2005) claims that a hostile environment forces unions to reassess the effectiveness of their organizing efforts in advancing workers' interests. ...
... By and large, the findings are in line with the literature arguing that adverse conditions can foster union revitalization (Gumbrell-McCormick and Hyman, 2013;Murray et al., 2020). In both countries the highly unfavourable post-2008 environment pressured union leaders to step up revitalization strategies to maintain their role and increase their influence vis-à-vis employers and governments. ...
Article
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The experience in Western Europe suggests that overreliance on institutional stability hinders trade union revitalization. This paper explores the other side of this coin: what is the impact of dismantling industrial relations institutions on union revitalization? It investigates the drivers and outcomes of the main revitalization strategies used by trade unions in Hungary and Romania as a response to the frontal attack of governments on their institutional supports post-2008. In both countries, national-level confederations took political action seeking to amend the labour laws that undermined their role and influence. At the company and occupational level, some trade unions increased their organizing efforts to retain their influence under an adverse legal framework. This article reveals that deinstitutionalization can be a driver of revitalization when trade unions are willing to take small steps to strengthen their links with rank-and-file members and with other unions, social movements or international organizations by using a combination of revitalization strategies. It also shows that unions have to simultaneously draw on different sets of power resources, particularly a mixture of organizational and societal power resources, to revitalize after losing institutional resources.
... This experimental expansion of tripartite social dialogue for the resolution of economic and social problems illustrates how this co-constitution by firms and unions creates dynamic complementarities and contributes to learning (Kristensen and Morgan 2012). The case also shows that when institutional legacies empower actors to open up new areas for action (Kristensen and Morgan 2012;Murray et al. 2020), firms may still prefer the planned solutions typical of social dialogue under Keynesianism to neoliberal market approaches. Finally, it shows that when actors use their strategic capabilities, and particularly their associational power (Murray 2017), recombining existing logics with new ones may ensure the continuing legitimacy of social dialogue and the resolution of economic and social problems. ...
... The integration of digital solutions in areas such as manufacturing, logistics, and energy management has been shown to improve efficiency and reduce waste. For instance, Murray et al. (2020) highlight how digitalization in the manufacturing sector can streamline production processes, optimize resource use, and ultimately contribute to more sustainable practices. ...
Article
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This study aims to investigate the influence of digitalization, industrialization and green innovation development, along with economic and environmental determinants on the green growth process. A dataset containing OECD countries from 2000 to 2022 utilizes a generalized method of moments (GMM) Panel VAR approach. This study also employs the panel Granger causality test. The findings of this study indicate that there is a significantly positive effect of green innovation development on the green growth process. There exists a significant positive association and causality between digitalization, industrialization and green growth. These findings carry substantial policy implications for the development and implementation of strategies that promote green growth and environmental-friendly innovation. Consequently, policymakers should prioritize integrating green innovation and adaptive measures in their sustainable development agendas to foster a greener, more resilient future. Therefore, this study offers important insights into the dynamic interplay among digitalization, industrialization, green innovation, and green growth, thus providing policymakers with actionable strategies to navigate the intersection of technological advancement and environmental sustainability toward a greener future. Moreover, this study also contributes to the existing literature by providing a nuanced understanding and actionable policy recommendations for policymakers and stakeholders seeking to navigate the evolving landscape of green growth amidst rapid technological and industrial transformations
... The integration of digital solutions in areas such as manufacturing, logistics, and energy management has been shown to improve efficiency and reduce waste. For instance, Murray et al. (2020) highlight how digitalization in the manufacturing sector can streamline production processes, optimize resource use, and ultimately contribute to more sustainable practices. ...
Conference Paper
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This study aims to investigate the influence of digitalization, industrialization, and green innovation development, along with economic and environmental determinants on the green growth process. A dataset containing OECD countries from 2000 to 2022 utilizes a generalized method of moments (GMM) Panel VAR approach. This study also employs the panel Granger causality test. The findings of this study indicate that there is a significantly positive effect of green innovation development on the green growth process. There exists a significant positive association and causality between digitalization, industrialization and green growth. These findings carry substantial policy implications for the development and implementation of strategies that promote green growth and environmental-friendly innovation. Consequently, policymakers should prioritize integrating green innovation and adaptive measures in their sustainable development agendas to foster a greener, more resilient future. Therefore, this study offers important insights into the dynamic interplay among digitalization, industrialization, green innovation, and green growth, thus providing policymakers with actionable strategies to navigate the intersection of technological advancement and environmental sustainability toward a greener future. Moreover, this study also contributes to the existing literature by providing a nuanced understanding and actionable policy recommendations for policymakers and stakeholders seeking to navigate the evolving landscape of green growth amidst rapid technological and industrial transformations.
... La primera fue la simplificación de los trámites administrativos. Esta comenzó con la generación del número único de identidad laboral, y continuó con la creación del "Programa de simplificación y unificación en materia de registración laboral y de la seguridad social" en 2005 17 Aún si este régimen extendió el derecho a la seguridad social a casi la totalidad del sector, la estructura de las contribuciones mantuvo la misma lógica establecida en el régimen de 1956. Esto significaba que el único caso en el que los aportes de los ellas. ...
... Such transitions, or organisational disruptions, generate change in individual's attitudes and beliefs as well as to organisational processes [17]. In this paper we are interested in notions of change through time, which illuminates the process of change whilst detailing the complexities of the journey [18]. ...
Article
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Using qualitative interview data (n = 142 interviews) generated with 50 nurses, over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, this paper traces the trajectories of nurses in the UK and attempts to unpick the interplay between structure and agency in their narratives. Interviews were inductively analysed for themes and an additional narrative analysis was undertaken to preserve the form of each participant’s narrative. We argue that nurses’ pandemic trajectories occurred within the ‘psychological vulnerability-stigma nexus’ which operates within health and social care providers in the UK and whilst constraining nurses’ agency at times it could also provide an impetus to act agentically. We found that the nurses’ COVID-19 trajectories were characterised by: getting by, getting out (job-hopping) getting needs met and getting organised. We call for more considered systemic support to be generated and consistently provided to nurses to ensure retention of nurses and the security of society to avoid exacerbating existing workforce shortages.
... In einer der letzten Ausgaben von Transfer (Ferreras et al., 2020;Murray et al., 2020) haben wir uns mit der Art und den Prozessen des Experimentierens im Kontext der Neuregulierung von Arbeit befasst und untersucht, inwieweit sich die unterschiedlichen beteiligten Akteure angesichts der Unsicherheiten infolge der erheblichen Disruption der bisherigen Arbeitsregulierung auf Experimente mit neuen Regelungen und Normen und neuen Repertoires eingelassen haben. Zwar hatten diese Prozesse eindeutige Auswirkungen auf die Arbeit selbst, aber diese vorherige Ausgabe von Transfer hat sich nicht mit der Frage befasst, was Arbeit besser oder schlechter macht oder welche Erfahrungen Arbeitnehmer:innen mit unterschiedlichen Dimensionen von Arbeit gesammelt haben. ...
Article
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Ausgehend von der Prämisse, dass bessere Arbeit zu besseren Gesellschaften führt, besteht die Aufgabe der Einleitung dieser Themenausgabe von Transfer: European Review of Labour and Research darin festzustellen, was Arbeit besser oder schlechter macht, und wie wir Arbeit verbessern können. Da eine Vielzahl von Versuchsanordnungen mitbestimmend für die zukünftige Ausgestaltung unserer Volkswirtschaften und Gemeinschaften ist, besteht eine wichtige Herausforderung darin, gemeinsam etwas über diese Prozesse zu lernen und auf diese Weise einen Dialog über den Wunsch nach besserer Arbeit und über die Rahmenbedingungen anzuregen, die eine Verbesserung von Arbeitsbedingungen eher erschweren oder eher unterstützen. Damit ist die Aufforderung verbunden, sich von zu eng gefassten Vorstellungen von Arbeitsplatzqualität zu verabschieden und stattdessen mit einer umfassenderen Perspektive danach zu fragen, wie die Akteure der Arbeitswelt strategisch und innovativ vorgehen und vorhandene Unsicherheiten zu einem Aspekt der Suche nach nachhaltigen Lösungen für eine bessere Arbeitswelt machen. Zu den Schlüsselthemen gehören die Fragen, warum Arbeit besser gemacht werden muss, stattdessen aber oft schlechter wird; warum bessere Arbeit zu besseren Gesellschaften führt; wie Arbeit besser gestaltet werden kann; welche Rolle bestimmte Institutionen bei der Verbesserung der Arbeitswelt übernehmen können; und schließlich die Frage, inwiefern Gewerkschaftsstrategien für experimentelle Prozesse zur Verbesserung von Arbeit essenziell sind.
... Un précédent numéro de Transfer (Ferreras et al., 2020;Murray et al., 2020) s'était concentré sur la nature et les processus d'expérimentation dans la re-régulation du travail en examinant comment, confrontés aux incertitudes liées aux perturbations majeures de la régulation du travail, divers acteurs s'étaient engagés dans l'expérimentation de nouveaux ensembles de règles et de normes et de nouveaux répertoires. Même si ces processus affectaient de toute évidence le travail lui-même, cette publication n'avait pas abordé la question de savoir ce qui rendait le travail meilleur ou pire, ni l'expérience des travailleur·euses par rapport aux différentes dimensions du travail. ...
Article
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Partant du principe que l’amélioration du travail contribue à l’amélioration des sociétés, le défi qu’entend mettre en évidence l’introduction de ce numéro spécial de Transfer: European Review of Labour and Research, consiste à déterminer ce qui rend le travail meilleur, ou pire, et comment il est possible de l’améliorer. Alors que des expériences très variées contribuent à façonner l’avenir de nos économies et de nos communautés, l’un des principaux enjeux consiste à s’engager dans un apprentissage partagé de ces processus afin de stimuler un dialogue entre l’aspiration à un meilleur travail et les conditions susceptibles de entraver ou de faciliter cette amélioration du travail. Cette démarche veut nous inciter à dépasser une conception étroite de la qualité de l’emploi pour adopter un point de vue plus large sur la manière dont les acteurs du monde du travail élaborent des stratégies, innovent et intègrent l’incertitude dans leur quête de solutions durables pour un travail de meilleure qualité. Les principaux thèmes de discussion sont les suivants : pourquoi le travail doit être meilleur (alors qu’il est souvent pire) ; pourquoi un meilleur travail permet-il d’améliorer les sociétés ; comment améliorer le travail ; quel est le rôle des institutions dans cette amélioration du travail ; comment, enfin, les stratégies syndicales sont-elles essentielles dans les processus d’expérimentation destinés à améliorer le travail.
... China's IR is in a long experimentation process where IR actors are engaging with constant experimental approaches (Murray et al., 2020), creating institutional supports and contextual conditions to facilitate the partnership approach to manage labour relations and improve OHS performance. China began reforming its IR system in 2012, in response to escalating labour unrest and labour shortages (Choi and Peng, 2015). ...
Article
This study takes a mutual gains perspective to investigate how a labour‒management partnership (LMP) impacts organisational occupational and health safety (OHS) performance and creates a safe workplace. It develops a model linking employee psychological safety with a collaborative industrial relations (IR) climate and ultimately organisational OHS performance. The research context is China ‒ where LMP is driven by the Party-state in managing labour relations. To test the proposed linkage model, multi-level structural equation modelling is conducted, using matched employer‒employee data from 205 companies and 7229 employees in an industrial park in the Yangtze River Delta. The results support the use of the linkage model, demonstrating that partnership decision-making increases psychological safety, in turn developing a collaborative IR climate, ultimately reducing the number of accidents. This study contributes to partnership research by exploring the underlying mechanisms of how a partnership arising from the logic of neo-pluralism successfully delivers mutual gains for employees and employers in a non-pluralist context. It has wider implications for collaborative management and OHS management in a developing country.
... Against this backdrop, this book contends that the 'web of rules' that sustained the standard employment contract since the end of the Second World War has been replaced by a 'patchwork' of rules that encompasses joint regulation, voluntarist employer-led mechanisms, statutory minimum standards, and 'institutional experimentation' (Murray, Lévesque, Morgan, & Roby, 2020) to enhance employment protections in response to the rise of non-standard forms of work. This is relevant to trade unions and studies of trade unionism because the increasingly diverse and complex ways that work is organised requires attention to the increasingly diverse set of actors and institutions involved in ensuring that workers are adequately protected (Doellgast, Lillie, & Pulignano, 2018). ...
... Substantial progress is also unlikely without parallel developments within China's economy. IR actors may engage in a second level of organisational experimentation (Murray et al., 2020) and create institutional conditions necessary for DM to flourish, such as the institutionalised practice of a system of rules governing internal democracy. Such potential is this article's focus: discerning how experimental searches engender new adaptive relationships between institutions and actors, identifying necessary preconditions for the DM process, and noting the impacts on process outcomes. ...
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The year 2022 marks the 10th anniversary of the adoption of democratic management (DM) provisions in China. DM, once predominant in state-owned enterprises, has now been extended to all enterprises. Democratising workplaces in China represents institutional experimentation. Both DM-related research and practice thus require updating. Ten years on, a social consensus on DM’s orientation and legitimacy remains elusive. Can expanding DM inspire industrial democracy or strengthen Party control over market-oriented workplaces? Or is DM merely window dressing as previous studies suggest? This article aims to uncover the type of workplace democracy that DM can achieve in China. A triangle of DM is established and integrated with institutional theory as an analytical framework to explore the causes and characteristics of DM in six case companies.
... In fact, these drives towards de-collectivisation have actually led to a reconsideration of collective actors, formal and informal, and their capacity to represent workers' interests. Further, the study of new collective actors representing SE workers, such as MCs, seems useful to understand aspects of organisational and institutional experimentations facing the disruptive tendencies in the labour market (Levesque et al. 2020). ...
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Algorithms are a form of productive power – so how may we conceptualise the newly merged terrains of social life, economy and self in a world of digital platforms? How do multiple self-quantifying practices interact with questions of class, race and gender? This edited collection considers algorithms at work – for what purposes encoded data about behaviour, attitudes, dispositions, relationships and preferences are deployed – and black box control, platform society theory and the formation of subjectivities. It details technological structures and lived experience of algorithms and the operation of platforms in areas such as crypto-finance, production, surveillance, welfare, activism in pandemic times. Finally, it asks if platform cooperativism, collaborative design and neomutualism offer new visions. Even as problems with labour and in society mount, subjectivities and counter subjectivities here produced appear as conscious participants of change and not so much the servants of algorithmic control and dominant platforms.
... Die Aushandlungsprozesse rund um die öffentliche Auftragsvergabe lassen sich gewissermaßen als einer von mehreren ‚Experimentierräumen' verstehen, die in Reaktion auf zahlreiche Leer-und Bruchstellen bisheriger Formen der Arbeitsregulierung entstanden sind. Als solche Bruchstellen ("fault lines") führen Murray et al. (2020) etwa die Entstehung zunehmend transnationaler Produktionsnetzwerke an, die vertikale Desintegration von Firmen, die zunehmende Individualisierung, neue disruptive Technologien oder schließlich globale Pandemien wie Covid 19. Diese Bruchstellen "disrupt traditional modes of work regulation, compelling actors in the world of work to come up with strategies as best they can, but also opening up spaces for experimentation in the major arenas for the regulation of work and employment." ...
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Zusammenfassung Die Entwicklungen in der öffentlichen Auftragsvergabe lassen sich einerseits als Lehrstück für den übergreifenden Trend einer 'tiefen' Vermarktlichung begreifen, der seit den 1990er Jahren selbst in bereits marktförmig organisierten gesellschaftlichen Teilbereichen eine Intensivierung von Wettbewerbsprinzipien befördert hat. Dennoch ist dies nur ein Teil des Bildes. Denn der rote Faden, der sich durch unsere Befunde zieht, ist trotz allem eine Doppelbewegung von Vermarktlichung und ‚Einbettung‘ (Polanyi) zugunsten gesellschaftlicher Ziele jenseits bloßer ökonomischer Freiheitsrechte. Das liegt wesentlich daran, dass es über alle Schauplätze der Entscheidungsfindung hinweg zu einer (Re-)Politisierung – im Sinne einer Infragestellung, Pluralisierung und Konkurrenz der dort produzierten Normen durch politische und zivilgesellschaftliche Akteure – gekommen ist. Dieser Politisierung an den verschiedenen Schauplätzen der vergabespezifischen Entscheidungsfindung gilt das Hauptaugenmerk dieser Zusammenfassung. Mit dem Begriff der 'variegated de-marketization' wird für eine Forschungsagenda geworben, die sich für die Entwicklungsdynamiken und Erscheinungsformen real existierender Ansätze einer nicht-neoliberalen Politik und Praxis interessiert, ohne zugleich die anhaltenden Effekte der ‚tiefen Vermarktlichung‘ außer Acht zu lassen.
... Die Aushandlungsprozesse rund um die öffentliche Auftragsvergabe lassen sich gewissermaßen als einer von mehreren ‚Experimentierräumen' verstehen, die in Reaktion auf zahlreiche Leer-und Bruchstellen bisheriger Formen der Arbeitsregulierung entstanden sind. Als solche Bruchstellen ("fault lines") führen Murray et al. (2020) etwa die Entstehung zunehmend transnationaler Produktionsnetzwerke an, die vertikale Desintegration von Firmen, die zunehmende Individualisierung, neue disruptive Technologien oder schließlich globale Pandemien wie Covid 19. Diese Bruchstellen "disrupt traditional modes of work regulation, compelling actors in the world of work to come up with strategies as best they can, but also opening up spaces for experimentation in the major arenas for the regulation of work and employment." ...
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Zusammenfassung Das Kapitel analysiert die Praktiken der sozialverantwortlichen Auftragsvergabe im engeren Sinn. Dabei richtet sich der Blick stärker als bislang auch auf die nichtstaatlichen Akteure, die in Deutschland traditionell eine wichtige Rolle bei der Aushandlung und Durchsetzung von Löhnen und weiteren Arbeitsstandards spielen, nämlich Gewerkschaften und Arbeitgeberverbände. Damit stehen hier die Interaktionen und Wechselwirkungen zwischen den alten Arenen industrieller Beziehungen und dem neuem ‚Experimentierraum‘ Vergabepraxis im Zentrum. Als zentrale Stellschrauben in diesem ‚Experimentierraum‘ geht das Kapitel auf die Lern –und Aushandlungsprozesse zu geeigneten Maßnahmen der Durchsetzung und Kontrolle extern gesetzter Lohnstandards (Tariflöhne, Vergabe-Mindestlöhne), zur Ermittlung angemessener Preise (als eine Form der indirekten Lohnsetzung), und zu weiteren Auflagen zu Arbeitsbedingungen bei den beauftragten Firmen ein. Die Analyse bestätigt tendenziell die Annahme eines komplementären Verhältnisses: Neigungen und Fähigkeiten kommunaler Akteure zur sozialverantwortlichen Auftragsvergabe hängen wenigstens partiell auch von den Impulsen und Handlungskapazitäten auf Seiten der Akteure der industriellen Beziehungen ab.
... Die Aushandlungsprozesse rund um die öffentliche Auftragsvergabe lassen sich gewissermaßen als einer von mehreren ‚Experimentierräumen' verstehen, die in Reaktion auf zahlreiche Leer-und Bruchstellen bisheriger Formen der Arbeitsregulierung entstanden sind. Als solche Bruchstellen ("fault lines") führen Murray et al. (2020) etwa die Entstehung zunehmend transnationaler Produktionsnetzwerke an, die vertikale Desintegration von Firmen, die zunehmende Individualisierung, neue disruptive Technologien oder schließlich globale Pandemien wie Covid 19. Diese Bruchstellen "disrupt traditional modes of work regulation, compelling actors in the world of work to come up with strategies as best they can, but also opening up spaces for experimentation in the major arenas for the regulation of work and employment." ...
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Zusammenfassung Das Kapitel widmet sich dem Wandel der Handlungsorientierungen in der Vergabepraxis. Sowohl die Ermessensspielräume, die der Gesetzgeber in Form der vielen Kann-Regelungen vorsieht, als auch die Pluralität von informellen Normen und Handlungsleitfäden, die Orientierungshilfen im Umgang mit den Ermessensspielräumen bieten, lassen erwarten, dass Kommunen und einzelne Vergabezuständige hier unterschiedliche Schwerpunkte setzen. In den Interviews mit Verwaltungskräften zeichnet sich dabei ein recht deutlicher, branchen- und ortsübergreifender Trend ab, und zwar zugunsten einer stärkeren Gewichtung der Qualität der eingekauften Dienstleistungen, sowie weiterer Ziele, die sich auf das Wohl der Adressat*innen der Dienstleistungen beziehen. Folglich beziehen sich auch viele der wahrgenommenen Herausforderungen und Handlungsdilemmata in erster Linie auf Aspekte, die eine Steigerung der Dienstleistungsqualität erschweren. Gute Arbeitsbedingungen (Sozialpolitisierung) oder der Schutz des Wettbewerbs als Institution (Vermarktlichung) nehmen demgegenüber einen sekundären Platz im Wertekanon der Vergabefachkräfte ein, und werden in erster Linie funktional auf das primäre Leitbild bezogen: Sie gelten also insoweit als nützlich (bzw. schädlich), als sie die Gewährleistung von qualitativ guten Dienstleistungen unterstützen.
... Die Aushandlungsprozesse rund um die öffentliche Auftragsvergabe lassen sich gewissermaßen als einer von mehreren ‚Experimentierräumen' verstehen, die in Reaktion auf zahlreiche Leer-und Bruchstellen bisheriger Formen der Arbeitsregulierung entstanden sind. Als solche Bruchstellen ("fault lines") führen Murray et al. (2020) etwa die Entstehung zunehmend transnationaler Produktionsnetzwerke an, die vertikale Desintegration von Firmen, die zunehmende Individualisierung, neue disruptive Technologien oder schließlich globale Pandemien wie Covid 19. Diese Bruchstellen "disrupt traditional modes of work regulation, compelling actors in the world of work to come up with strategies as best they can, but also opening up spaces for experimentation in the major arenas for the regulation of work and employment." ...
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Zusammenfassung In diesem Kapitel liegt der Fokus zunächst auf den Vorgehensweisen der Verwaltung in ihrem Bemühen, sich vom ‚Diktat des billigsten Preises‘ zu entfernen, sowie auf den Schwierigkeiten und Gelingensbedingungen für diese Lernprozesse. Die untersuchten Kommunen haben ihre Vergabeprozesse zwar in der jüngeren Zeit mit dem Ziel der Professionalisierung reorganisiert. Die weiterhin dynamische Gesetzesentwicklung und Rechtsprechung und der damit verbundene chronisch unvollständige Charakter vergaberechtlicher Expertise tragen aber dazu bei, dass das Handeln unter (v.a. Rechts-)Unsicherheit dennoch ein zentrales Merkmal von Entscheidungsprozessen in der Vergabepraxis bleibt. Zugleich setzen, auch gestützt durch die neuen Verfahren des Bieterschutzes, die institutionellen Strukturen für das Verwaltungspersonal starke Anreize, sich am alten Prinzip der Rechtskonformität zu orientieren. In diesem Spannungsfeld aus Rechtskonformität und Rechtsunsicherheit entwickeln die Akteure unterschiedliche grundsätzliche Herangehensweisen, wie sie sich neue Entscheidungsspielräume zugunsten einer Vergabe nach Qualitätsgesichtspunkten erschließen.
... Die Aushandlungsprozesse rund um die öffentliche Auftragsvergabe lassen sich gewissermaßen als einer von mehreren ‚Experimentierräumen' verstehen, die in Reaktion auf zahlreiche Leer-und Bruchstellen bisheriger Formen der Arbeitsregulierung entstanden sind. Als solche Bruchstellen ("fault lines") führen Murray et al. (2020) etwa die Entstehung zunehmend transnationaler Produktionsnetzwerke an, die vertikale Desintegration von Firmen, die zunehmende Individualisierung, neue disruptive Technologien oder schließlich globale Pandemien wie Covid 19. Diese Bruchstellen "disrupt traditional modes of work regulation, compelling actors in the world of work to come up with strategies as best they can, but also opening up spaces for experimentation in the major arenas for the regulation of work and employment." ...
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Zusammenfassung Nahezu zeitgleich zum Beginn der Vermarktlichung hat auch das Ringen um den Stellenwert sozialer und anderer ‚vergabefremder‘ Ziele eingesetzt. Diese ‚Sozialpolitisierung‘ erfolgt im Modus der Politisierung – also gestützt auf Verfahren, Akteure und Ziel-Programme des politischen Systems. Im Ergebnis öffnen die jüngsten Gesetzesreformen und Gerichtsurteile auf europäischer Ebene die öffentliche Auftragsvergabe mehr denn je für soziale Zwecke, heben den Konflikt zwischen Wettbewerbsschutz und sozialen Zielen allerdings nicht auf. Vielmehr ist es hier gewissermaßen zu einer Institutionalisierung des Nebeneinanders von Vermarktlichung und Sozialpolitisierung gekommen.
... Die Aushandlungsprozesse rund um die öffentliche Auftragsvergabe lassen sich gewissermaßen als einer von mehreren ‚Experimentierräumen' verstehen, die in Reaktion auf zahlreiche Leer-und Bruchstellen bisheriger Formen der Arbeitsregulierung entstanden sind. Als solche Bruchstellen ("fault lines") führen Murray et al. (2020) etwa die Entstehung zunehmend transnationaler Produktionsnetzwerke an, die vertikale Desintegration von Firmen, die zunehmende Individualisierung, neue disruptive Technologien oder schließlich globale Pandemien wie Covid 19. Diese Bruchstellen "disrupt traditional modes of work regulation, compelling actors in the world of work to come up with strategies as best they can, but also opening up spaces for experimentation in the major arenas for the regulation of work and employment." ...
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Zusammenfassung Der zweite Teil des Buchs widmet sich der Vergabepraxis und stellt den Schwerpunkt unserer eigenen Untersuchung dar. Diese Schwerpunktsetzung beruht auf der grundlegenden Annahme, dass Märkte nicht lediglich durch einschlägige Gesetzegestaltet werden, sondern auch durch die alltäglichen Entscheidungen und Interaktionen der Verwaltung mit Akteuren, die von diesen Entscheidungen betroffen sind. ‚Market making‘ ist mit anderen Worten zu guten Teilen ‚street-level market making‘: Auf den unteren Politik- und Verwaltungsebenen, die das vergabespezifische Regelwerk anwenden, wird wesentlich mit darüber bestimmt, wie stark der Preiswettbewerb um staatliche Aufträge eingeschränkt oder intensiviert wird. Unsere Analyse der Vergabepraxis schließt damit an eine Reihe von Studien zum beruflichen Ethos öffentlich Bediensteter unter dem Einfluss von Vermarktlichung oder ‚Ökonomisierung‘ an, die in diesem Kapitel kurz rekapituliert werden. Sie erweitert diese Perspektive aber, indem sie nach den Werthaltungen, Dilemmata und Handlungspraktiken fragt, die sich aus der skizzierten Doppelbewegung von Vermarktlichung und Sozialpolitisierung ergeben.
... Die Aushandlungsprozesse rund um die öffentliche Auftragsvergabe lassen sich gewissermaßen als einer von mehreren ‚Experimentierräumen' verstehen, die in Reaktion auf zahlreiche Leer-und Bruchstellen bisheriger Formen der Arbeitsregulierung entstanden sind. Als solche Bruchstellen ("fault lines") führen Murray et al. (2020) etwa die Entstehung zunehmend transnationaler Produktionsnetzwerke an, die vertikale Desintegration von Firmen, die zunehmende Individualisierung, neue disruptive Technologien oder schließlich globale Pandemien wie Covid 19. Diese Bruchstellen "disrupt traditional modes of work regulation, compelling actors in the world of work to come up with strategies as best they can, but also opening up spaces for experimentation in the major arenas for the regulation of work and employment." ...
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Zusammenfassung Neben der Reform von Gesetzen und Verordnungen ist auch die Ausdeutung von formalen Normen ein politisches Feld, auf dem unterschiedliche Akteure und Interessen um Einfluss ringen. Dies gilt auch für das breite Spektrum an nicht verbindlichen Informations- und Beratungsangeboten, wie die formalen Regeln in der Praxis implementiert werden können. Diese Deutungsangebote wurden auch im Gefolge der Doppelbewegung von Vermarktlichung und Sozialpolitisierung stark ausgebaut. Sie richten sich mit dem Anspruch an die Vergabepraxis, diese zu professionalisieren und so bei der Bewältigung der gestiegenen (und diversen) Ansprüche an die öffentliche Auftragsvergabe zu unterstützen. Berufsverbände der Vergabefachkräfte selbst spielen dabei keine so zentrale Rolle wie im Falle der klassischen Professionen des Gesundheits- und Sozialwesens. Vielmehr werden die professionellen Standards von einer Vielzahl auch ex-terner Akteure mitentwickelt, die mit unterschiedlichen Interessen und politischer Stoßrichtung den Vergabepraktiker*innen ihre Expertise in Form von Leitbildern, Beratungen, Wissenssammlungen und Standards einer ‚guten‘ Auftragsvergabe andienen. Ihre Aktivitäten lassen sich daher als 'politische Professionalisierung' bezeichnen
... Die Aushandlungsprozesse rund um die öffentliche Auftragsvergabe lassen sich gewissermaßen als einer von mehreren ‚Experimentierräumen' verstehen, die in Reaktion auf zahlreiche Leer-und Bruchstellen bisheriger Formen der Arbeitsregulierung entstanden sind. Als solche Bruchstellen ("fault lines") führen Murray et al. (2020) etwa die Entstehung zunehmend transnationaler Produktionsnetzwerke an, die vertikale Desintegration von Firmen, die zunehmende Individualisierung, neue disruptive Technologien oder schließlich globale Pandemien wie Covid 19. Diese Bruchstellen "disrupt traditional modes of work regulation, compelling actors in the world of work to come up with strategies as best they can, but also opening up spaces for experimentation in the major arenas for the regulation of work and employment." ...
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Zusammenfassung Die umfassende Vergaberechtsmodernisierung, die durch die reformierten europäischen Vergaberechtsrichtlinien aus dem Jahr 2014 in vielen europäischen Ländern eingeleitet wurde, kann als Meilenstein in der Politisierung der öffentlichen Auftragsvergabe bezeichnet werden. Das Ergebnis der Vergaberechtsmodernisierung wird allerdings von den beteiligten Akteuren wie auch in der Literatur recht unterschiedlich gewürdigt. Dokumentiert die Reform einen ‚Paradigmenwechsel‘ zugunsten der sozial verantwortlichen Auftragsvergabe? Oder dominiert auch hier letzten Endes der „lange Schatten“ der marktliberalen Rechtsprechung des Europäischen Gerichtshofs (Schmidt 2018)? Die Analyse in diesem Teil verdeutlicht, dass die Gesetzesentwicklung sich als Doppelbewegung aus ‚Sozialpolitisierung‘ und Vermarktlichung der Auftragsvergabe kennzeichnen lässt. Die beiden Entwicklungslinien lösen einander nicht ab, sondern überlagern sich eher und bestehen bis heute nebeneinander her.
... Die Aushandlungsprozesse rund um die öffentliche Auftragsvergabe lassen sich gewissermaßen als einer von mehreren ‚Experimentierräumen' verstehen, die in Reaktion auf zahlreiche Leer-und Bruchstellen bisheriger Formen der Arbeitsregulierung entstanden sind. Als solche Bruchstellen ("fault lines") führen Murray et al. (2020) etwa die Entstehung zunehmend transnationaler Produktionsnetzwerke an, die vertikale Desintegration von Firmen, die zunehmende Individualisierung, neue disruptive Technologien oder schließlich globale Pandemien wie Covid 19. Diese Bruchstellen "disrupt traditional modes of work regulation, compelling actors in the world of work to come up with strategies as best they can, but also opening up spaces for experimentation in the major arenas for the regulation of work and employment." ...
... Die Aushandlungsprozesse rund um die öffentliche Auftragsvergabe lassen sich gewissermaßen als einer von mehreren ‚Experimentierräumen' verstehen, die in Reaktion auf zahlreiche Leer-und Bruchstellen bisheriger Formen der Arbeitsregulierung entstanden sind. Als solche Bruchstellen ("fault lines") führen Murray et al. (2020) etwa die Entstehung zunehmend transnationaler Produktionsnetzwerke an, die vertikale Desintegration von Firmen, die zunehmende Individualisierung, neue disruptive Technologien oder schließlich globale Pandemien wie Covid 19. Diese Bruchstellen "disrupt traditional modes of work regulation, compelling actors in the world of work to come up with strategies as best they can, but also opening up spaces for experimentation in the major arenas for the regulation of work and employment." ...
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Zusammenfassung Ab dem Ende der 1980er Jahre wurden in der öffentlichen Auftragsvergabe auf europäischer und nationaler Ebene Marktprinzipien intensiviert, in Form einer Verdichtung und forcierten Durchsetzung von wettbewerbsschützenden Regeln. Diese Vermarktlichung erfolgt im Modus der Verrechtlichung, also gestützt auf Verfahren, Akteure und Doktrine des Rechtssystems. Die verschiedenen Facetten dieser Entwicklung – etwa die Einführung neuer Regeln und Instanzen des Bieterschutzes, oder die regulative Expansion und Vervielfältigung von Detailregeln, welche die Entscheidungsspielräume von nationaler Politik und Vergabepraxis verringern – kommt einer Institutionalisierung und Quasi-Konstitutionalisierung des Wettbewerbsprinzips gleich, die in dieser Qualität neu ist.
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The expansion of platform work has disrupted and reordered employment regulation. The literature has contributed to this subject from different angles, although often in a fragmented way and without clearly explaining why and how regulatory conflict arises over platform work. Using Beckert's (2010) framework for study of how fields change, the author conducted a critical literature review on: 1) the roles of institutions, networks and frames in regulating platform work; 2) the regulatory power these structures provide to actors and organizations; and 3) the possible interrelationships between these structures. The results show the existence of a substantial literature on the scope of institutional regulation and the regulatory power of networks, but much less on the broader role of the state in this field, and the framing processes that guide the actors’ preferences for regulation. Future lines of research are discussed. Summary In this article, a critical review of the literature identifies which state and non-state actors and organizations influence and shape regulatory conflict over platform work, and which resources enable them to intervene. These questions are addressed by examining the different forms of embeddedness that interact and shape the regulatory process. Drawing on the framework that Beckert (2010) proposed to explain changes in market fields, this literature review identifies three dimensions of research that emphasize the roles of institutions, social networks and cognitive frames, respectively. It also discusses to what extent the literature on platform work has developed an integrated perspective on regulation and how the field of industrial relations can benefit from the incorporation of different dimensions of research. The literature search was conducted using the main available databases and grouped into the three main dimensions of the framework. Influential policy reports and grey literature in the field of study were also included. In total, 149 documents were reviewed in depth. The literature has primarily focused on discussing the scope and applicability of existing labour regulatory frameworks and the increasingly important role of strategic litigation. There has also been a remarkable research strand on the regulatory power of platform firms and on new forms of governance. There has been much less critical research on the state's role in the expansion of the platform economy and on how different actors legitimize the regulatory process. This paper applies a three-dimensional framework to the literature to facilitate dialogue on three social structures that influence platform work regulation, the aim being to explain the emergence of regulatory conflict in this area. The framework captures both formal and informal forms of regulation, making it useful for the industrial relations literature as well.
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This article explores paths for the renewal of the study of industrial relations and labour law. Through a comparative historical review of these two fields of study, it examines their common roots and legacies and a range of renewal initiatives. It is argued that both fields need to reappropriate core values: recognition of the fundamental inequality of the parties to the employment relationship; and recognition of the need to compensate for this inequality through collective processes. The seeds of this renewal are identified in both labour law and industrial relations. Their future lies in the emergence of an integrated field of study of work and employment and in the role and future of work as a vector of democracy. Summary Industrial relations and labour law both suffered a relative decline during the latter decades of the 20th and the early 21 st centuries. Through a comparative historical review of the field of study, this article explores current and past efforts by scholars in industrial relations and labour law to examine their common legacies in order to transcend the overly narrow confines of their fields and identify avenues for renewal. Both industrial relations and labour law have long shared a common object of study—work and employment—and would benefit from more systematic integration of their findings. Such an integration will be explored by broadening both analytical perspectives. Neither jurists nor industrial relations specialists should confine their understanding of law to the formal rules within state law. They should instead turn to analysis of the “living law” through empirical studies of its nature and effectiveness. Industrial relations, whose focus is on the future of work and society, requires a more substantive engagement with the social sciences, while both fields need a normative project to advance citizenship at work and democracy. In line with Arthurs’ observations on labour law (2011), such renewal also requires an understanding of how both can be used to challenge hegemonic institutions and initiate alternative approaches.
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La croissance du travail sur plateforme numérique a perturbé et réorganisé la réglementation sur l’emploi. La littérature a abordé ce sujet sous différents angles, mais souvent de manière fragmentée et sans expliquer clairement pourquoi et comment les conflits sur le plan réglementaire à propos du travail sur plateforme numérique surviennent. En utilisant le cadre de Beckert (2010) pour étudier la manière dont les domaines changent, l’auteur a effectué une revue critique de la littérature sur : 1) les rôles des institutions, des réseaux et des cadres dans la réglementation du travail sur plateforme numérique; 2) le pouvoir de réglementation que ces structures confèrent aux acteurs et aux organisations; et 3) les interrelations possibles entre ces structures. Les résultats démontrent l’existence d’une littérature abondante sur la portée de la réglementation institutionnelle et le pouvoir réglementaire des réseaux, mais beaucoup moins sur le rôle plus large de l’État dans ce domaine et les cadres qui guident les préférences des acteurs en matière de réglementation. Les axes de la recherche à réaliser dans le futur sont abordés. Résumé Dans cet article, une analyse critique de la littérature identifie les acteurs et organisations étatiques et non étatiques qui influencent et créent le conflit réglementaire sur le travail sur plateforme numérique ainsi que les ressources qui leur permettent d’intervenir. C’est en analysant les différentes formes d’intégration qui interagissent et façonnent le processus réglementaire que ces questions sont abordées. En s’inspirant du cadre proposé par Beckert (2010) pour expliquer les changements dans les domaines du marché du travail, cette revue de la littérature identifie trois dimensions de la recherche qui soulignent les rôles respectifs des institutions, des réseaux sociaux et des cadres cognitifs. Elle examine également dans quelle mesure la littérature abordant le travail sur plateforme numérique a développé une perspective intégrée sur la réglementation et comment le domaine des relations industrielles peut bénéficier de l’incorporation de différentes dimensions de la recherche. La recherche documentaire a été effectuée à l’aide des principales bases de données disponibles et a été regroupée selon les trois dimensions principales du cadre. L’article comprend également des rapports politiques influents et la littérature grise du domaine d’étude. Au total, 149 documents ont fait l’objet d’un examen approfondi. La littérature s’est principalement concentrée sur la portée et l’applicabilité des cadres réglementaires existants en matière de travail et sur le rôle de plus en plus important des litiges stratégiques. Le pouvoir réglementaire des entreprises de plateformes et les nouvelles formes de gouvernance ont également fait l’objet d’un remarquable volet de recherche. Beaucoup moins de recherches critiques ont été effectuées sur le rôle de l’État dans l’expansion de l’économie à la demande et sur la manière dont les différents acteurs légitiment le processus de réglementation. Cet article applique un cadre tridimensionnel à la littérature pour faciliter le dialogue sur trois structures sociales qui influencent la réglementation du travail sur plateforme numérique; l’objectif étant d’expliquer l’émergence du conflit réglementaire dans ce domaine. Ce cadre englobe à la fois les formes officielles et informelles de réglementation, ce qui le rend utile pour la littérature sur les relations industrielles.
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Proposals for a just transition for labour have been largely restricted to debates about transitions from the coal and oil industries. However, the transitions under way, especially in the context of the climate crisis, are more widespread. Hence the debates about a just transition from carbon-intensive industries should be refined and extended; otherwise, there is a prospect of rhetorical gesturing and little substantive change. Alongside these debates, planning guidelines are in place to encourage the adoption of circular economy practices to address questions relating to material sustainability, especially in the context of the encroaching climate crisis. Relatively little attention has been given to the implications for work and employment relationships of realizing the increasingly popular ambition to reuse, recycle and re-manufacture material inputs, waste and end-of-life products. To address these themes, the focus here is on the importance of a developed worker-focused just transition in Australian housing construction, and by implication other industries. The argument is twofold. First, an effective worker-based approach means participative and engaged labour unions pursuing transition objectives. Second, moves toward a circular economy require a just transition for the workforce. Such a transition must be planned and inclusive, with workers and their organizations as active subjects in the process. Hence, different strategies are required when unions are not in a position to speak for the whole workforce. We propose that alliances based on unions and other bodies that support workers and their households (such as environmental and other advocacy groups) become critical to the creation of a sustainable and just circular economy. Alliance politics, supported by appropriate government regulation, can become the basis to overcome the partiality and fragmentation of union representation. Abstract Proposals for a just transition for labour have been largely restricted to debates about transitions in coal regions. Yet a just transition for labour should apply to all industries. Alongside these debates, planning guidelines are in place to encourage the adoption of circular economy practices to address questions relating to material sustainability, especially in the context of the encroaching climate crisis. Surprisingly, few people have considered the implications of such changes for work and employment relationships. Unless a just transition is pursued, current inequalities in the housing construction industry are likely to intensify and remain embedded. The argument is that moves toward a circular economy in Australian housing construction require a just transition for the workforce. Such a transition must be planned and inclusive.
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On the basis of a comparative analysis of market risks (re)distribution between labour and management in public‐service outsourcing in Italy and Denmark, this article examines different cross‐national patterns of social solidarity in similar encompassing and co‐operative employment relations regimes. It seeks to explain why similar inclusive and collaborative systems of public‐sector employment relations are not functionally equivalent in preventing labour inequalities under market‐making pressure, as predicted by the extant literature. The analysis demonstrates that variation between the countries considered was due to three interrelated factors which mutually reinforced each other in either virtuous (Denmark) or (semi)vicious (Italy) circles: (i) the availability of legislative loopholes; (ii) the cross‐sectoral (public/private) organizational structure and strategy of trade unions and (iii) employers’ outward/inward orientation. The findings confirm the capacity of cross‐sectoral public/private dynamics to either build or erode solidarity in inclusive systems, and they highlight the importance of incorporating the strategic agency exerted by unions and public employers as a crucial determinant of the granular differences emerging between similar models.
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Drawing on an extended critical case study of the Greater Manchester (GM) city region in the UK, this article contributes to debates around the changing role of social actors within local labour markets, and how they contribute to processes of regulatory experimentation and innovation. While recent literature has drawn attention to new actors and novel strategies in responding to labour market disruptions, in this article the authors argue that there is still room for embedded actors and established practices in defending, and advancing, decent minimum standards. This may be through political lobbying, workplace organising, industrial action, extending collectively agreed standards to outsourced workers, or through hybrid forms of trade union–community campaigning. Against a wider background of labour market de-regulation, the authors’ case study points to the layering up of increasingly fluid and context-specific repertoires of conflict and cooperation that shape labour market ‘norms’ and legitimise particular progressive causes within local rather than national capitalisms.
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De nouvelles opportunités s’offrent au mouvement syndical. La rareté de la main-d’oeuvre et la situation économique (inflation) procurent une conjoncture favorable aux organisations syndicales leur permettant de regagner du terrain perdu. De plus, outre la récente décision de la Cour d’appel du Québec concernant les travailleurs et travailleuses étudiants d’ABI - qui reconnait que ceux-ci ne peuvent pas être payés moins pour accomplir des tâches équivalentes - de récents changements législatifs rendent plus difficiles l’adoption de clauses de disparité de traitement et commandent l’obligation d’une rémunération équivalente pour les travailleurs et travailleuses d’agence. Reconnaissant la nécessité du changement organisationnel, thématique de ce numéro, pour les différentes parties prenantes du monde du travail, les auteur.es posent alors cette question : comment les organisations syndicales pourraient saisir l’occasion qui se présente? Dit autrement, comment pourraient-elles contribuer à réduire la précarité en emploi tout en assurant la pérennité des organisations ? Après cinq décennies de « vent de face », les astres sont alignés pour que le mouvement syndical reprenne l’offensive et travaille à renverser la vapeur de la précarisation du travail, Pour se faire, il faut sortir du carcan de leur corporatisme syndical, et surtout ne pas « surfer » sur la satisfaction des membres. Il faut au contraire des actions d’éducation, de mobilisation et de sécurisation, afin de contrer la précarisation du marché du travail. Cette conjoncture favorable doit aussi bénéficier aux travailleurs et travailleuses précaires, une telle opportunité ne se représentera pas souvent!
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This article seeks to advance our thinking about better and worse work by developing a novel framework for assessing the quality of work and its implications. It does so in terms of the wider literature on job quality, while addressing the need to embrace a broader agenda and a more dynamic understanding of how to make worse work better. To this end it presents a three-dimensional framework: risk, autonomy and expressiveness. The framework assesses better and worse work and the ways in which workers navigate between these different dimensions of their lives at work. We explore implications for actor strategies and for researchers to take a better-work agenda forward.
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From the premise that better work makes for better societies, the challenge, taken up in the introduction to this special issue of Transfer: European Review of Labour and Research, is to explore what makes work better, or worse, and how it can be improved. As a wide variety of experiments shape our economies and communities for the future, a key challenge is to engage in shared learning about these processes in order to stimulate a dialogue between the aspiration for better work and the conditions likely to hinder or facilitate making work better. It is an invitation to move from narrow conceptions of job quality to a broader lens of how world-of-work actors strategise, innovate and incorporate uncertainty into their search for sustainable solutions for better work. Key themes include: why work needs to be better (but is often worse); why better work makes for better societies; how work can be made better; the role of institutions in achieving better work; and, finally, how union strategies are essential to processes of experimentation to make work better.
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The resurgence of debate around digitalisation and work has seen the role of unions in the ‘social shaping of technology’ attracting renewed interest. A key question concerns how far national institutions influence unions’ ability to shape digitalisation in particular sectors and workplaces. Using a multi-level analysis that emphasises the inter-relationships between institutions, union power, resources and agency, this article compares the role of two unions in the banking sector in Norway and the UK. Drawing on interviews with national officers and workplace representatives, it addresses their involvement in decision-making processes and ability to influence outcomes in relation to digital monitoring and surveillance. The research findings highlight the continued salience of ‘country effect’ as evidenced by the Norwegian union’s more prominent role in shaping better worker outcomes.
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This article argues that key avenues to improve working conditions – value chain integration, on the one hand, and lead firms’ compliance processes, on the other – have not resulted in improvements in the European apparel industry. Evidence is drawn from economic and social up-/downgrading trajectories in major apparel producing countries as well as a case study on social audits and labour market enforcement in the United Kingdom. Both suggest that institutions to prevent labour exploitation in supply chains have largely been ineffective. Institutional experimentation, which has been hybrid in combining hard and soft law as well as public and private governance elements, underlined the role of lead firms but continued to exclude civil society actors. It is argued that human rights due diligence, at the heart of many institutional experiments, draws on a deficient private compliance model, rather than building in worker-driven elements that could lead towards a better alternative. Open access: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/10242589231194313
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Cette étude s’intéresse aux conditions de passage d’une expérimentation organisationnelle à une expérimentation institutionnelle dans le champ du dialogue social sectoriel des soins de santé. Plus précisément, nous souhaitons analyser les conditions d’émergence d’une nouvelle forme d’action collective dans un contexte social très structuré et sa capacité à se muer en expérimentation institutionnelle. Afin de répondre à cette question de recherche, nous proposons un cadre d’analyse original destiné à mettre en perspective le processus d’institutionnalisation en cours ainsi que les trajectoires que ce type d’expérimentation peut suivre dans la durée.
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In this article we examine work reorganisation in technician units at France Télécom (FT/Orange) following the social crisis associated with employee suicides in 2007–2009. As a result of trade union campaigns and changes in leadership, the company moved to a more collaborative model, relying on broadened skills and enhanced worker participation in decision-making. Drawing on the framework of organisational and institutional experimentation, we argue that the crisis provided an opportunity to shift from top-down, Taylorised practices to a high-involvement model based on multi-skilled teams. This new model fostered mutual gains for workers in terms of increased autonomy and broadened skills, and for the employer through improved efficiency and customer service. It was underpinned, however, by the strengthening of labour’s countervailing power following the social crisis, which encouraged and supported managers in prioritising psychosocial health as a key organisational objective.
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The relation between trade unions’ power resources and their ability to revitalize is contentious. One strand of literature claims that weak power resources prevent unions from undertaking efforts to restore their strength and influence, while another research strand argues that the depletion of power resources may stimulate unions to take such actions. This Special Issue tests these conflicting expectations with evidence from eight Central-Eastern European (CEE) countries. It focuses on the drivers and outcomes of different types of revitalization strategies that CEE unions employ to respond to challenges. By examining the link between union power resources and their revitalization strategies, it expands the scholarly knowledge on the preconditions and limits of union revitalization in adverse contexts.
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Notwithstanding major evolutions in both class identity and broader structural processes, generically defined “middle classes” are still a target for both investors seeking effective remuneration strategies and urban governments striving to achieve urban competitiveness as well as increased “social cohesion” and “order” in cities. However, despite this enduring centrality, scholars have yet to truly develop a critical discussion around the transformations involving middle classes' subjectivities within urban regeneration discourses and strategies and how they are shaped/adjusted/filtered through the specific forms that their design and implementation assume within particular contexts. We argue that a better grasp of these subjectivities can be critical for a deeper understanding of these strategies, their rationales, tools, outcomes, and shortcomings. The paper intends to fill this gap by investigating such subjectivities through the collection and discussion of “residential narratives”, by which we mean the collection of discourses and representations set forth by households and analyzed about a series of relevant dimensions: expectations, boundaries, and belonging. The narratives were collected in two European urban neighborhoods - one in Milan (Italy) and one in Marseille (France) - involved in variably governed urban regeneration processes centered on shaping and mobilizing middle-class subjectivities. Based on the presented results, the paper argues for a bottom-up institutionalist perspective on how we study urban regeneration discourses and strategies as class-making governing processes.
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The archetypal model of full-time regular employment is now increasingly challenged by wide-ranging alternatives. The most common feature of such alternatives is a progressive evolution in the standard employment relationship towards a fragmentation of work with specific tasks and greater autonomy over the way of performing a job. Numerous working processes that do not conform with traditional forms of control are excluded from the domain of labour legislation and social protection. Therefore, these alternative forms of work do not seem devoid of risks, raising the question of new forms of collective action capable of dealing with them. This chapter compares three ways of renewing social dialogue in a more inclusive perspective through case studies embedded in Belgium, France and the Netherlands. We analyze union and non-union initiatives by scrutinizing the ‘functional equivalents’ they provide to open-ended standard employment relationships and their engagement in a process of collective capacity building. Drawing on the institutional literature, we explore the links between the industrial relations system, the flexibility of labour markets and the modalities of collective action feasibly provided. Our analysis demonstrates the undeniable influence of the institutional context.KeywordsSocial dialogueNon-unionsCollective actionInstitutionalismAutonomous workEurope
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This article develops a framework for analyzing the social effects of marketization, defined as the imposition or intensification of price-based competition. The conceptual background is debates in comparative employment relations over the liberalization of markets and its consequences across Europe. Our central proposition is that marketization in its diverse forms leads to increased economic and social inequality via its effects on non-market institutions. We outline two mechanisms through which this happens. First, the means used by managers and investors to seek influence shifts from voice to exit, leading to the disorganization of industrial relations and welfare institutions. Second, economic activity shifts from productive toward non-productive activities, leading to changes in market regulation that are insulated from public scrutiny.
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This paper examines how the international competition to attract and retain foreign direct investment shapes the governance of business and employment systems. Through an examination of global production networks and the changing role of the state in economic governance, it highlights the sub-national regional space as an important level of institutional adaptation. Specifically, it explores how regions organise themselves to compete for inward investment, and the potential role of industrial relations actors within this. It argues that both research into multinational companies, and of the governance of employment systems more generally, need to incorporate an analysis of regional competition for productive investment more fully into their analysis.
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International framework agreements (IFAs) represent a new generation of transnational agreements between multinational companies and global trade union federations. This paper analyzes the impact of such an agreement on a successful union organizing campaign in Colombia in 2012. We argue that management strategies towards corporate social responsibility and social dialogue influence the impact of IFAs on worker rights. However, this relationship is mediated by the capacity of managers and worker representatives at multiple levels to mobilize their capabilities. The results highlight the importance of institutionalized dialogue between managers and worker representatives, of the dissemination of capabilities across multilevel coordination structures and, most importantly, of their complementarities at various levels.
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Civil society organizations (CSOs) attempt to induce corporations to behave in more socially responsible ways, with a view to raising labour standards. A broader way of conceptualizing their efforts to influence the policies and practices of employers is desirable, one centred upon the concept of civil governance. This recognizes that CSOs not only attempt to shape the behaviour of employers through the forging of direct, collaborative relationships, but also try to do so indirectly, with interactions of various kinds with the state being integral. Drawing on evidence derived from UK-based CSOs involved in work and employment relations, four types of civil governance are identified and characterized. By elaborating the concept of civil governance, and demonstrating how different types of civil governance operate, the research extends our knowledge and understanding of how CSOs, as increasingly prominent actors in the field of work and employment relations, operate within, and contribute to, systems of labour governance.
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Accelerating processes of economic globalization have fundamentally reshaped the organization of the global economy towards much greater integration and functional interdependence through cross-border economic activity. In this interconnected world system, a new form of economic organization, termed global production networks (GPNs) in this book, has emerged that brings together a wide array of economic actors, most notably capitalist firms, state institutions, labour unions, consumers, and non-government organizations, in the transnational production of economic value. National and sub-national economic development in this highly interdependent global economy can no longer be conceived of, and understood within, the distinct territorial boundaries of individual countries and regions. Instead, global production networks are organizational platforms through which actors in these different national or regional economies compete and cooperate for a larger share of the creation, transformation, and capture of value through transnational economic activity. They are also vehicles for transferring the value captured between different places. This book ultimately aims to develop a theory of global production networks that explains economic development in the interconnected global economy. It provides robust answers to a fundamental question: how is development in different economies driven by their participation in value activities organized through global production networks? These answers can also offer new theoretical insights into why the organization and coordination of global production networks varies significantly between different industries, sectors, and economies, and why those variations matter for economic development.
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This introductory article to the special issue proposes that proponents of the European marketization project need to give serious consideration to the negative externalities that are created by virtually all moves to extend the scope of markets. The theme is applied particularly to the case of the labour market and its special characteristics. Attention is given to tensions between the idea of 'flexicurity' and policies designed to deal with the Eurocrisis. The former recognized that, if workers were to accept the potential job losses implied by labour market flexibility, they needed certain reassurances of security, such as generous unemployment pay and further training. The policies imposed on the debtor countries involved in the crisis have removed most such possibilities of security. The theme of coping with the negative consequences of intensifying markets is also used to introduce and integrate the remaining contributions to the special issue.
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List of Figures ix List of Tables xi Preface xiii CHAPTER ONE Problems of Institutional Analysis 1 CHAPTER TWO The Problem of Change 31 CHAPTER THREE The Problem of Mechanisms 62 CHAPTER FOUR The Problem of Ideas 90 CHAPTER FIVE The Problem of Globalization 124 CHAPTER SIX Where Do W Go from Here? 172 APPENDIX Analysis of Tax Levels and Structures for Country Subgroups 191 References 205 Index 239
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Winner of the 2016 George R. Terry Book Award from the Academy of Management. Explores the effects on community of increasing density and scope of interaction -- both disruptive consequences and potentially great opportunities for widened understanding and cooperation. Places these developments in a historical framework, arguing that we are at an inflection point in a long transition from community based on a key rule of tolerance, to one centered on understanding.
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In a context in which multinational companies are increasingly able to choose their locations of production, this paper examines how social and political governance actors in host regional economies attempt to attract and retain foreign direct investment. Based on a comparative study of two regions in each of Canada, Ireland, Spain and the UK, it shows both national and in some cases sub-national variations in the nature of attempts to attract and retain foreign investment, as well as in the actors involved. The paper also discusses how these differences in policy interact with the characteristics of specific foreign investors. Our findings support arguments that attempts to embed regime-shopping firms are facilitated by active governance from social as well as state actors.
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This book examines contemporary changes in labor market institutions in the United States, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, and the Netherlands, focusing on developments in industrial relations, vocational education and training, and labor market policy. It finds that there are in fact distinct varieties of liberalization associated with very different distributive outcomes. Most scholarship equates liberal capitalism with inequality and coordinated capitalism with higher levels of social solidarity. However, this study explains why the institutions of coordinated capitalism and egalitarian capitalism coincided and complemented one another in the 'Golden Era' of postwar development in the 1950s and 1960s, and why they no longer do so. Contrary to the conventional wisdom, this study reveals that the successful defense of the institutions traditionally associated with coordinated capitalism has often been a recipe for increased inequality due to declining coverage and dualization. Conversely, it argues that some forms of labor market liberalization are perfectly compatible with continued high levels of social solidarity and indeed may be necessary to sustain it.
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This article discusses the experimentation led by SMart in Belgium, a worker cooperative founded to support freelance artists – and subsequently extended to other freelancers – with the aim of helping them reduce four forms of uncertainties that affect such workers. Over the past 20 years, SMart has sought to secure broader access to social protections for these workers, shifting its strategies to accommodate the changes in rules set by the Belgian federal state. Today, experimentation abounds for various types of intermediation with new forms of employment, but SMart is notable for its ambition to build a cooperative firm providing the protections of wage work to beneficiaries otherwise ignored by social policies. Based on qualitative research conducted from a Deweyan perspective, and 48 in-depth interviews with SMart worker-members, the authors examine the ways in which SMart can be considered an example of democratic institutional experimentation providing collective capabilities to its worker-members in pursuit of better work.
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This book has both empirical and theoretical goals. The primary empirical goal is to examine the evolution of industrial relations in Western Europe from the end of the 1970s up to the present. Its purpose is to evaluate the extent to which liberalization has taken hold of European industrial relations and institutions through five detailed, chapter-length studies, each focusing on a different country and including quantitative analysis. The book offers a comprehensive description and analysis of what has happened to the institutions that regulate the labor market, as well as the relations between employers, unions, and states in Western Europe since the collapse of the long postwar boom. The primary theoretical goal of this book is to provide a critical examination of some of the central claims of comparative political economy, particularly those involving the role and resilience of national institutions in regulating and managing capitalist political economies. Essential reading for researchers and students interested in comparative politics and industrial relations. Argues that liberalization of industrial relations has been a universal tendency among European countries over the last thirty-five years. Offers a comprehensive description and analysis of what has happened to the institutions that regulate the labor market, as well as the relations between employers, unions, and states in Western Europe since the end of the 1970s.
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When people go to work, they cease to be citizens. At their desks they are transformed into employees, subordinate to the hierarchy of the workplace. The degree of their sense of voicelessness may vary from employer to employer, but it is real and growing, inflamed by populist propaganda that ridicules democracy as weak and ineffective amid global capitalism. At the same time, corporations continue untouched and even unremarked as a major source of the problem. Relying on 'economic bicameralism' to consider firms as political entities, this book sheds new light on the institutions of industrial relations that have marked the twentieth century, and argues that it is time to recognize that firms are a peculiar institution that must be properly organized in order to unshackle workers' motivation and creativity, and begin nurturing democracy again. For more information, please visit the accompanying website: www.firmsaspoliticalentities.net. Offers a new perspective on firms as political entities rather than purely economic organizations, giving readers a new way to look at the problems of the globalized world Presents a new history of capitalist democracies and addresses the contradiction between democracy and capitalism by examining the distinction between corporations and firms. A groundbreaking proposal for governing the firm inspired by the history of political bicameralism.
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Neoliberalism--the doctrine that market exchange is an ethic in itself, capable of acting as a guide for all human action--has become dominant in both thought and practice throughout much of the world since 1970 or so. Writing for a wide audience, David Harvey, author of The New Imperialism and The Condition of Postmodernity, here tells the political-economic story of where neoliberalization came from and how it proliferated on the world stage. Through critical engagement with this history, he constructs a framework, not only for analyzing the political and economic dangers that now surround us, but also for assessing the prospects for the more socially just alternatives being advocated by many oppositional movements.
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This paper ¹ maps the labour law reforms in various European countries either triggered by the crisis or introduced using the crisis – falsely – as an excuse. Such reforms generally render existing labour law provisions more flexible and loosen minimum standards, shifting the emphasis to soft law (deregulation). In some countries it consists only of piecemeal although significant deregulatory measures, while in others it involves far-reaching overhauls of the whole labour code. Furthermore, in several countries fundamental changes are being made to industrial relations structures and processes which might jeopardise social dialogue and collective bargaining there. The authors critically address this large-scale deregulation of labour law currently taking place, in particular the lack of democratic foundations underlying the reforms and their negative impact on fundamental social rights and workers' protection.
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Across a range of disciplines and issues, experimentalism has emerged as a prominent approach for addressing environmental problems. Yet the meaning of “experiment” varies markedly across these domains. We survey the diversity of experimentation, identifying three distinct experimental logics—controlled, Darwinian, and generative. Building on Pragmatist philosophy, we argue that each of these logics has different strengths and weaknesses, but taken together they offer a valuable experimentalist approach to environmental problem-solving. However, from a transdisciplinary perspective, it is important to recognize the different values, purposes, and stances toward knowledge that they entail. Controlled experiments primarily aim to isolate causality, while Darwinian experimentation endeavors to enhance systemic innovation and generative experimentation seeks to generate new solution concepts. Appreciating these differences allows us to be more reflexive about an experimentalist agenda, illuminating the appropriate role of these logics and suggesting possibilities for fruitfully combining them. To advance this reflexive agenda, we also distinguish between epistemic and political learning and argue that experimental approaches to environmental problem-solving may benefit from being more sensitive to this distinction.
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This chapter discusses open economy industrial policy, which focuses on connections among domestic firms and between firms and the world market. In contrast to import substitution policies, the objective of such policies is to increase economic openness in order to enhance flows of knowledge, foster productive innovation and strengthen non-traditional exports. This chapter shifts the debate on government activism in support of globally competitive industries from picking winners to a process of step-by-step transformation of the private and public sectors.
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The concepts of power and democracy have been extensively studied at the global, national and local levels and within institutions including states, international organizations and political parties. However, the interplay of those concepts within social movements is given far less attention. Studies have so far mainly focused on their protest activities rather than the internal practices of deliberation and democratic decision-making. Meeting Democracy presents empirical research that examines in detail how power is distributed and how consensus is reached in twelve global justice movement organizations, with detailed observations of how they operate in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Switzerland and the UK. Written by leading political scientists and sociologists, this work contributes significantly to the wider literature on power and deliberative democracy within political science and sociology.
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Spaces of Work is an accessible examination of the role of labour in the modern world. The authors critically assess the present condition and future prospects for workers through the geographies of place, space and scale, and in conjunction with other more commonly studied components of the globalisation such as production, trade and finance. Each chapter presents examples of labour practice from around the world, and across multiple sectors of work, not just Western manufacturing. In addition, the book features: · further reading section with key questions · glossary of key terms · short summaries of the main theoretical approaches · guide to further learning resouces Spaces of Work is a key book for all social scientists interested in the contemporary state of labour, and the scope for progressive change within the capitalist system. Students of human geography, sociology, international political economy, economics and cultural studies will all find this an invaluable text. © Noel Castree, Neil M. Coe, Kevin Ward and Michael Samers 2004.
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We inhabit a perpetually accelerating and increasingly interconnected world, with new ideas, fads, and fashions moving at social-media speed. New policy ideas, especially “ideas that work,” are now able to find not only a worldwide audience but also transnational salience in remarkably short order. Fast Policy is the first systematic treatment of this phenomenon, one that compares processes of policy development across two rapidly moving fields that emerged in the Global South and have quickly been adopted worldwide? conditional cash transfers (a social policy program that conditions payments on behavioral compliance) and participatory budgeting (a form of citizen-centric urban governance). Jamie Peck and Nik Theodore critically analyze the growing transnational connectivity between policymaking arenas and modes of policy development, assessing the implications of these developments for contemporary policymaking. Emphasizing that policy models do not simply travel intact from sites of invention to sites of emulation, they problematize fast policy as a phenomenon that is real and consequential yet prone to misrepresentation. Based on fieldwork conducted across six continents and in fifteen countries, Fast Policy is an essential resource in providing an extended theoretical discussion of policy mobility and in presenting a methodology for ethnographic research on global social policy. © 2014 by the Regents of the University of Minnesota. All rights reserved.
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This article starts with a description in broad strokes of the intellectual heritage shaping institutionalism in different social science disciplines. Then, a number of debates serve as points of entry to approach the question of coherence or diversity. The definition of institutions, the double issue of change and emergence, and the question of action and agency are explored in turn. Those are key questions today, with which scholars are grappling across and beyond disciplinary boundaries. A red thread throughout the article is to ponder whether the exploration of these questions reveals enduring and tight boundaries, or whether it shows instead increasing coherence and proximity within the broad institutionalist family. In the concluding section, the article goes back to this thread.
Article
This book presents findings based upon eight case studies of inter-organizational forms, involving interviews with about 450 managers and workers from nearly sixty employing organizations across many different sites of employment - the supplier, the client, the franchiser, the franchisee, the public purchaser and the private provider. The empirical material used is extensive and grounded. The research is intended to contribute to contemporary debates on changing work organization and 'the future of work' by reconnecting the analysis of organizations with the study of employment and work as well as situating the study of employment within the context of changing forms of organization. The hope is that this book's research will contribute as much to understanding why there may be limits to fragmentation and disintegration as to an explanation of their presence and effectiveness.
Article
A recent upsurge in the incidence of precarious work in Europe necessitates fresh examination of the origins of this trend. On the basis of field research in eight European countries and with reference to theories of liberalization and dualization, the factors that drive precarious work in discrete European labour markets are thus investigated. It is discovered that, while a structural-demographic factor such as non-compliance with labour law is a notable progenitor of precarious work, the deregulatory strategies of public authorities are particularly significant drivers. In conclusion it is asserted that although the theory of dualization helps explain developments in conservative-corporatist countries, in Anglophone and Mediterranean countries liberalization theory is generally more apposite. Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries emerge as a hybrid case.
Article
This essay highlights productive ways in which scholars have reanimated the concept of structural power to explain puzzles in international and comparative politics. Past comparative scholarship stressed the dependence of the state on holders of capital, but it struggled to reconcile this supposed dependence with the frequent losses of business in political battles. International relation (IR) scholars were attentive to the power of large states, but mainstream IR neglected the ways in which the structure of global capitalism makes large companies international political players in their own right. To promote a unified conversation between international and comparative political economy, structural power is best conceptualized as a set of mutual dependencies between business and the state. A new generation of structural power research is more attentive to how the structure of capitalism creates opportunities for some companies (but not others) vis-a-vis the state, and the ways in which that structure creates leverage for some states (but not others) to play off companies against each other. Future research is likely to put agents - both states and large firms - in the foreground as political actors, rather than showing how the structure of capitalism advantages all business actors in the same way against non-business actors.
Article
Transnational trade union action has expanded significantly over the last few decades and has taken a variety of shapes and trajectories. This book is concerned with understanding the spatial extension of trade union action, and in particular the development of new forms of collective mobilization, network-building, and forms of regulation that bridge local and transnational issues. Through the work of leading international specialists, this collection of essays examines the process and dynamic of transnational trade union action and provides analytical and conceptual tools to understand these developments. The research presented here emphasizes that the direction of transnational solidarity remains contested, subject to experimentation and negotiation, and includes studies of often overlooked developments in transition and developing countries with original analyses from the European Union and NAFTA areas. Providing a fresh examination of transnational solidarity, this volume offers neither a romantic or overly optimistic narrative of a borderless unionism, nor does it fall into a fatalistic or pessimistic account of international union solidarity. Through original research conducted at different levels, this book disentangles the processes and dynamics of institution building and challenges the conventional national based forms of unionism that prevailed in the latter half of the twentieth century.
Article
Many traditional regions are undergoing change and transformation as industries restructure. The development of ‘green economies’ and the transition to a low-carbon economy offers areas experiencing industrial decline an opportunity to innovate around policies for regeneration. In this process, there is a necessary emphasis on skills development and the creation of decent jobs, but institutional context mediates such processes in different places in different ways. This article argues that an effective transition policy is more likely to emerge where a mutually reciprocal relationship is developed between the state qua government and the social groups that comprise the region, including employers and workers and their representatives. Utilising a ‘varieties of capitalism’ typology in relation to areas of industrial decline in Germany and the UK, the article illustrates the ways in which transition policies are elaborated and implemented, with an explicit focus on decent job creation.
Book
This book is an effort to assess developments in a neoliberal era spanning the past three decades of global history. Although social science examines many phenomena, it looks only rarely at what Pierson (2003) calls “big, slow-moving processes.” We are often not aware of the sands shifting beneath our feet as events change the character of the times in diffuse ways. Beginning in the 1980s, the growing influence of market-oriented ideas constituted just such a process, global in scope, pervasive in effects. We want to know what consequences neoliberal ideas and policies had for social, economic, and political life. But even more central to this inquiry is a desire to understand the process whereby neoliberal ideas worked their way into the policies of governments, the operation of organizations, and the lives of ordinary people. In that respect, this volume is an investigation into the dynamics of social change. Compared with many studies, this one involves a shift in optics. Neoliberalism is often analyzed as a set of policy reforms reflecting a class politics that ranges capital against labor (Duménil and Lévy 2004; Harvey 2005). Although that approach has some validity, such perspectives tend to treat a multidimensional set of developments in largely economic terms and sometimes overemphasize the negative effects of neoliberalism. Perspectives that treat neoliberalism as a cultural phenomenon offer a useful corrective but often overstate the domination of neoliberal ideas over social life. In this volume, we try to integrate economic, political, and cultural analyses of neoliberalism, and instead of seeing it as a development with homogenous effects across space and time, we view it as a more open-ended stimulus that provoked a diversity of responses.
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This article investigates the use of Internet networks during the recent mobilisation of Californian Walmart workers. The findings of this case study suggest that Internet-based mass self-communication networks (Facebook, YouTube, etc.) can complement traditional organising techniques. Mass self-communication networks ameliorate many of the weaknesses identified by previous studies of Internet networks. In particular, these types of networks can help overcome negative dispositions towards unions, increase the density of communication and the level of participation among members, create a collective identity congruent with trade unionism, facilitate organisation and spread ‘swarming actions’ which are effective at leveraging symbolic power. Moreover, unions may be well suited to providing crucial strategic oversight and coordination to wider worker networks.
Book
For much of the twentieth century, large companies employing many workers formed the bedrock of the U.S. economy. Today, on the list of big business's priorities, sustaining the employer-worker relationship ranks far below building a devoted customer base and delivering value to investors. As David Weil's groundbreaking analysis shows, large corporations have shed their role as direct employers of the people responsible for their products, in favor of outsourcing work to small companies that compete fiercely with one another. The result has been declining wages, eroding benefits, inadequate health and safety conditions, and ever-widening income inequality.From the perspectives of CEOs and investors, fissuring--splitting off functions that were once managed internally--has been a phenomenally successful business strategy, allowing companies to become more streamlined and drive down costs. Despite giving up direct control to subcontractors, vendors, and franchises, these large companies have figured out how to maintain quality standards and protect the reputation of the brand. They produce brand-name products and services without the cost of maintaining an expensive workforce. But from the perspective of workers, this lucrative strategy has meant stagnation in wages and benefits and a lower standard of living--if they are fortunate enough to have a job at all.Weil proposes ways to modernize regulatory policies and laws so that employers can meet their obligations to workers while allowing companies to keep the beneficial aspects of this innovative business strategy.
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The United States is one of the developed countries that have experienced the steepest declines of unionization and collective bargaining in recent decades. Its traditional industrial relations institutions, premised on the prevalence of “standard” employment relationships, have long been eroded by restrictive legislation and employer opposition. Meanwhile, precarious employment, sub-standard conditions and marginalization have become widespread features of the labour market, leading to the spontaneous emergence of alternative, often community-based initiatives to protect vulnerable workers using highly innovative strategies. “Worker centres”, in particular, have been very active to that end, often teaming up with formal trade unions to pursue their objectives.
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The widespread decline of trade unions and the emergence of various alternative forms of worker voice and representation have posed a challenge to the field of industrial relations and generated significant rethinking of the future directions for this field of study. In this article, we examine how well industrial relations meta-theories, when combined with efforts to build middle-range theories, provide distinctive explanations and different predictions for the alternatives that have emerged to date to fill the void. We propose new directions for theory and research that expand the range of actors or institutions that shape employment relations and include social identities outside of the employment relationship as the basis for mobilizing collective actions and voice. Finally, we suggest using these theoretical arguments to test among alternatives as a means of revitalizing and reshaping industrial relations as well as carrying forward the problem-solving norms that have characterized the field since its inception.
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Green growth requires green technologies: production techniques that economize on exhaustible resources and emit fewer greenhouse gases. The availability of green technologies both lowers social costs in the transition to a green growth path and helps achieve a satisfactory rate of material progress under that path. The theoretical case in favour of using industrial policy to facilitate green growth is quite strong. Economists’ traditional scepticism on industrial policy is grounded instead on pragmatic considerations having to do with the difficulty of achieving well-targeted and effective interventions in practice. While these objections deserve serious attention, I argue that they are not insurmountable. A key objective of this paper is to show how the practice of industrial policy can be improved by designing institutional frameworks that counter both informational and political risks.
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Crowd employment platforms enable firms to source labour and expertise by leveraging Internet technology. Rather than offshoring jobs to low-cost geographies, functions once performed by internal employees can be outsourced to an undefined pool of digital labour using a virtual network. This enables firms to shift costs and offload risk as they access a flexible, scalable workforce that sits outside the traditional boundaries of labour laws and regulations. The micro-tasks of ‘clickwork’ are tedious, repetitive and poorly paid, with remuneration often well below minimum wage. This article will present an analysis of one of the most popular crowdsourcing sites—Mechanical Turk—to illuminate how Amazon's platform enables an array of companies to access digital labour at low cost and without any of the associated social protection or moral obligation.
Book
For thirty years, the British economy has repeated the same old experiment of subjecting everything to competition and market because that is what works in the imagination of central government. This book demonstrates the repeated failure of that experiment by detailed examination of three sectors: broadband, food supply and retail banking. The book argues for a new experiment in social licensing whereby the right to trade in foundational activities would be dependent on the discharge of social obligations in the form of sourcing, training and living wages. Written by a team of researchers and policy advocates based at the Centre for Research on Socio Cultural Change, this book combines rigour and readability, and will be relevant to practitioners, policy makers, academics and engaged citizens. © Andrew Bowman, Ismail Ertürk, Julie Froud, Sukhdev Johal, John Law, Adam Leaver, Michael Moran and Karel Williams 2014.
Book
A groundbreaking analysis of a hotly contested business model, Private Equity at Work provides an unprecedented analysis of the little-understood inner workings of private equity and of the effects of leveraged buyouts on American companies and workers.
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Dewey's approach to the problem of organizing reform of democracy focused on rethinking the ideal of democratic participation, or, backing up a step, the conditions of communication eventually shaping it. He left the design of institutions to advance joint problem solving and individual development to the outcome of this process. To the extent that he had concrete institutional plans they vacillated in focus between the society as a whole and the immediate local community. Democratic experimentalism looks to connect these levels to correct the defects of an exclusive focus on either.
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Although the recent push toward sustainability is certainly generally a positive development in business and society, we can see many problems in the execution of the theory of sustainability. Where the triple bottom line calls on companies to weigh effects on stakeholders and the environment alongside profit, in practice in many cases, sustainability has been perverted to represent sustainable profits. In these cases, environmental impact and effects on people are only important insofar as they positively contribute to a firm‘s future profits. It is not only practitioners who have often espoused this misappropriated view of sustainability but also academics have lent credibility to this view. In this work, we start by criticizing the often espoused current view of sustainability and remind academics of their responsibility to adapt a more critical view of this narrow focus. We provide examples that show how the current system of capitalism has resulted in outcomes for people and the environment that are patently unacceptable. Reasons are given as to why there is much hesitation to change the status quo. We then call on academics to reexamine what the role of businesses should be within society, what obligations business and corporations should have in society, and how we can encourage meaningful change that results in a better world for future generations.